Thursday, October 30, 2008

Unless you simply avoid American television, you've probably seen Hollywood's get-out-the vote commercial, and unless you were purposely trying to avoid it, you probably also saw Obama's infomercial last night (apparently, ABC was the ONLY major network which didn't run it). While I will be voting for Mr. Obama, frankly, I cannot wait to see this campaign end, because the news doesn't seem to cover much else these days (which is why I listen to NPR news coverage, but even they cannot avoid the election). But I'd like to ask you to consider something else: signing a petition for a "Google Doodle" to commemorate World Diabetes Day on November 14. If you look over to the links on the right side of my blog, you will see a logo with a link to the petition. Just click on that (or the word "petition" preceding this) and a new window will open directing you to the petition itself. BTW, note that once you are on DiabetesDoodle.com, you should UNcheck the box on receiving information before you sign -- it's checked by default. If you don't uncheck the box, a donation page comes up after you have signed. At this point, your signature has still been counted, so you can simply close this donation page: there is no need to hit 'Next'. If you do, you go through to a PayPal donation page. The money they are asking for not supporting a diabetes cause, rather it is used to fund the iPetitions.com application.

If you have spent anytime on the Internet, you've probably seen one of those infamous Google Doodles which are slight modifications to the Google logo meant to commemorate various holidays and events. Because Google is (presently, anyway) the dominant search engine on the Internet, these doodles have a meaningful impact. Google is an online advertising machine, with 99% of it's revenue derived from advertising, and although I didn't research it beyond a simple Wikipedia inquiry, for the 2006 fiscal year, Google reported $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues. Imagine the possibility of commemorating World Diabetes Day with a Google Doodle!

In my own mind, I could see the regular Google Logo in gray, with the International Diabetes Federation's blue circle logo replacing the two O's in the word Google, and perhaps a few red spots around it meant to symbolize drops of blood from fingersticks, and perhaps a syringe thrown in for good measure, but that is a creative decision.

There is something very easy you can do, and David Edelman of DiabetesDaily.com and Manny Hernandez of TuDiabetes.com have stated a petition to see a World Diabetes Day doodle on Google's front page on November 14th. But in order to persuade Google that it's a worthwhile idea, they've started a petition and are seeking more than 20,000 signatures. As of October 23, 2008, the petition had 8,021 signatures, so they're well on their way, but a lot has to happen to get the rest of the signatures by November 1! Remember: World Diabetes Day is just a few weeks away!